160-year-old buildings span three centuries
Canada celebrates 150 this year. However, Waterloo and these four buildings have every right to celebrate 160.
Waterloo was incorporated as a village in 1857, the same year Jacob Bricker erected his Commercial Block on King South. Last week’s 19th-century illustrations provided a good idea of how harmonious the block was in its early incarnations. The symmetrical shop fronts and upper storeys’ windows, along with the decorative cornice and frieze provided the appearance of strength and durability.
Today’s two photographs from the 20th and 21st centuries reveal how the block’s unity has been lost through considerable changes.
The first streetscape comes from the Waterloo Public Library’s Ellis Little Local History Room and reveals modifications made to the buildings by the mid-1970s. Windows and shop fronts had already been altered; however the entire cornice and frieze remained intact. A May 2017 photo by John Glass shows those latter features now cut in half by modernization.
Around 1920, Waterloo homes and businesses received street numbers and five were assigned to this four-store block. For reference, 2017’s locaters are: #2 (King Street Cycles); #4 (Uptown Beauty); #6 (a small door at its right leading upstairs); #8 (Frank’s Jewellers); #10 (Crystal Palace).
Apart from mid-Second World War, these four buildings have been in continuous use, housing a variety of businesses over 160 years.
#2: Bellinger’s general store in last week’s 1881 sketch became Bricker and Germann Dry Goods from 1913 to 1934. Leonard Klopp carried on the business until 1951 when Royal Bank of Canada moved in. Browns Sport’s occupied #2 from 1971 to 1978. Subsequent shops included Dirndl Schatz, Jeans R Us, Cycle Path and King Street Cycle.
#4: Simon Snyder’s name in the 1881 sketch connects with the column I recently wrote about druggist A.J. Roos who began his career there, eventually purchasing the business in 1902 when Snyder died. Roos sold to Alfred Haehnel in 1906 and 43 years later Mel Hahn took over. Mel and son Jack kept Hahn’s Pharmacy running until the mid-1980s. Spanky’s children’s clothing store and Buy-the-Yard fabrics were occupants before Uptown Beauty Lounge took over. The City of Waterloo designated the façade in 1986 and there is an historical plaque noting the building as the founding site of Dominion Life Assurance Company.
#6: A small door led upstairs to the Masonic Hall and, from 1910 until 1960, the Frederick Hughes dentist office.
#8: Seagram distillery bottled its whisky here in the late 1880s but as business increased, that operation was relocated and the Seagram family used the shop and the upstairs for business offices until 1941. William Frank then shifted his 1919 jewelry business from its previous location farther south. Frank’s Jewellers has remained at #8 ever since, operated by William’s descendants Bill and Robert.
#10: John Shuh’s 1881 general and grocery store lasted until 1891 when Jacob Uffelman assumed ownership until purchasing Ontario Seed Company in 1910. Several dry goods merchants occupied #10 until 1917 followed by William Carroll’s grocery store. The store sat vacant during wartime until Jacob Uffelman purchased the building in 1945, combined it with his next-door Ontario Seed Company’s Central Block and created two storefronts. Louis and William Graham founded Grahams’ Grill at #10 in 1945 before moving to Erb Street 13 years later to open Angie’s.
Noon Seto then operated the Grand Grill for 15 years at #10 with the Ali B Boutique in the second half of the building. Later restaurants at #10 were the Lantern, Fung King and now Crystal Palace which has taken over both shop fronts.
There are many stories behind these 160-year-old buildings and Mike Copland in adjacent Home Hardware knows many of them. In the Ellis Little Local History Room at WPL, I also had access to that remarkable collection of information researched and gathered by Ellis, “Mr. Waterloo History,” whose Grade 8 history class at MacGregor School in 1959 likely sowed the seeds of my own local history interest.